Experiences of a World War II Veteran: Before, During and After the War First Edition Edition

In Experiences of a World War II Veteran, a memoir by James

Woodall Taylor, the reader meets a complete man, representative in many

ways of the men and women of "the greatest generation," those who fought

in World War II. I use the word complete to mean that the man we see in

Experiences of a World War II Veteran has not only accumulated

experiences that have exposed him to the world at large, but also he has

transformed those experiences into a meaningful wholeness. Perhaps

unknowingly, and clearly modestly, the author has provided readers with

the portrait of a man who has lived a full life and made sense of life

by grappling with physical, emotional, and spiritual issues with which

virtually everyone can identify.

Professor Taylor was a most unlikely candidate for being a

complete man, and, indeed, his beginning "from the poorer level of

society" was inauspicious. But the genesis of being a complete man

often begins in meager circumstances, depending on the values that

attend those circumstances. In Professor Taylor's case, being a country

boy in Tennessee, living on subsistence farming during the Depression

taught him to work hard and to value simplicity. Because hard work

required plying skills to succeed at a variety of tasks, Professor

Taylor became adept at all kinds of manual labor, and never shied away

from hard work. The theme of taking on a task that required significant

effort dominates his memoir, whether that task was working as a "pull

out man" in a cellophane plant, traveling West to work in the wheat

harvest, learning how to drive a tractor to earn a living on a farm in

the Oklahoma panhandle, mastering various duties as a noncom in the

military (including cooking), or earning graduate degrees. In every

case, the drive and determination to make something of his life without

complaining about his circumstances is a motivating factor in Professor

Taylor's life-long endeavors. Certainly, the hovering specter of

poverty that dominated his early years and the wraith of unemployment

that attended the Depression are never far away from Professor Taylor's

drive to DO something with his life. That drive is keenly apparent in

his decision to study geography, because as he was told, "there wasn't a

professional Geographer in America who was unemployed." Professor

Taylor's response? "Having lived through the period of such high

unemployment in the early 1930's, up to 25%, this sounded especially

good to me." Even when reflecting on his life when he was approaching

his nineties, after a successful career as an academician, Professor

Taylor notes that his value system included this lesson about economics:

"Good debt is for things of lasting value, such as a home, bad debt for

things of transient value, such as consumer good or entertainment."

Horatio Alger also hovers over Professor Taylor's memoir because

Professor Taylor literally lived a life that is marked by inauspicious

beginnings to success of all sorts: Intellectual achievements enriched

by travel experiences, many years of health, enduring marriage to a

woman he deeply loved (and loves), the pleasure of home life with a son

and daughter, independence wrought by working with his hands throughout

his life, ease in retirement because of prudent investment, and

spiritual solace. In reading Professor Taylor's memoir, one is left

with the indelible impression that his was a complete life, enriched by

variegated experiences, which, in turn, was enriching to others.

I have noted that the theme of overcoming adversity by gritty

determination is interwoven throughout the memoir, but the role of what

Professor Taylor would call providence also figures into his

achievements. This is particularly noteworthy when he recounts his

early schooling and says that his teacher, when helping him learn to

read, considered him dumb intellectually. The problem, as Professor

Taylor soon learned, was that he needed reading glasses. Here's how he

tells the story.

It was near the end of the fifth grade that we learned that I

was visually impaired. One day my mother went to have her eyes tested

to change her glasses. I was "bugging" the doctor as he was writing

mom's prescription, so to get me to quit bothering him, he said, "OK

young man, hop up in the chair and let's see you read the chart." I did

as instructed and started reading. When I reached the third line, I

stopped reading. He said, "OK young man, go on." I said, "I can't. I

can't see it." He replied, "See here young fellow, you need glasses."

The summer between the fifth and sixth grades, with mom's help,

I learned to read. I became a voracious reader.

My response? Hurray for the underdog! Shame on the teacher.

And I think readers, too, would agree. They would also find pleasure in

Professor Taylor's initial experience in graduate school. For those who

cherish Austin Peay State University, the school from which Professor

Taylor received his undergraduate degree, his recounting of his

remarkable success at Syracuse will be uplifting. Again, Professor

Taylor recounts his experience:

Because my B.S. Degree was from a new college which had not been

accredited I was admitted [to Syracuse] on probation. Another factor in

the probation was that I didn't even have a minor in geography. I had

already earned my B.S., they couldn't take that from me, so I decided to

give it a try and see if I could prove myself in graduate school. So I

enrolled in June for the summer term of 1947.

Even though I had a meager background in geography, I did well

enough my first semester that I was offered an assistantship for my

second semester. . . .

An incident happened my second semester that I still remember

with pleasure. As I was walking down the hall one day, one of my

professors whom I respected highly said to me, "You did all right on

that word analogy test last week." "How did I do?" "I can't tell you

your score, but you did all right!" This pleased me greatly, for I knew

that the well known schools in the northeast looked down on the school

of the south. So evidently it had been a pleasant surprise to him for

me to make a good score, perhaps better than some of my colleagues from

some of the well known schools up there.

The complete man becomes complete by accepting challenges to show that

he has the ability to succeed, and neither the negative opinions of

grade-school teachers, nor the cultural biases of professors keeps the

complete man from achieving excellence: become a voracious reader and

an outstanding student. Hurray for the underdog!

Completeness requires attention to a person's spiritual nature,

and Professor Taylor notes early on in his memoir that he was awakened

to Christianity. He explains his commitment to Christianity in his

mid-teens when he attended a revival, but, for some, such an experience

would be ephemeral. Professor Taylor demonstrates throughout his memoir

that Christian faith was no passing encounter but a deeply held

commitment. In later life, he served as a deacon in the Baptist church

and sang in the choir, but those activities are not what convince the

reader of Professor Taylor's enduring engagement with Christianity.

Primarily his war experiences are the proving ground for his struggles

with God in the midst of unspeakable carnage.

Like much of his memoir, Professor Taylor's recounting of his

military service is propelled by the places to which he traveled and the

events that accompanied those travels. Although he made many stops

along the journey that comprised his military career, the heart of that

experience is in Tinian, a jungle area where an airfield serviced

airplanes that bombed the Japanese. In one instance, Sergeant Taylor

was given photographs that depicted a bombing raid on Tokyo.

The devastation which I saw [reported Sergeant Taylor] was horrible.

There had been a fire raid on the home industry section of Tokyo the

night before. I find it difficult to imagine a more horrible fate than

those poor people faced. That night more people were killed than lived

in the city of Nashville and more people made homeless than lived in the

state of Tennessee. Even this is not adequate to tell the personal

horror that the individuals faced. The picture which told it best to me

was one taken after it was all over, one taken from the side of a

street. It showed a bicycle rider, hunkered over the handlebars riding

for dear life-literally! The bicycle was balanced, standing in the

street. All that was left of the person was charcoal, just a human

shaped chunk of charcoal.

Worse devastation followed because the Enola Gay, loaded with an

atomic bomb, left the airfield at Tinian to deliver its horrific

projectile to Hiroshima. The war is all but over at this point in the

memoir. But the horrors of war do not end easily, and Sergeant Taylor,

now a civilian studying at Austin Peay, wrote a short story, "The

Question," for a creative writing course. In "The Question," Professor

Taylor addresses the haunting question of how a God of love can allow

the unspeakable ravages of war. In addressing that question, his

protagonist recounts,

Strange, but the question didn't nag so persistently when the

Japs were the ones to suffer. Guess that was because of the army

training and that slow burning hate which grew in fierceness each time a

buddy died. Then, too, he had never actually seen the Japs burn as he

had his own buddies.

Then there was a let-up in the offensive, and all except

essential personnel were given a half-holiday. He had used his time to

go along with some of the fellows to look for seashells. That was when

he saw the head.

It was floating in a little pool which had been formed in the

shelf of coral that made up the coastline. Each time a wave washed over

the shelf the head bobbed up and down and bumped the coral. Seeing this

with its shreds of trailing flesh, its empty eye sockets and its

grinning teeth sickened him. Undoubtedly, it was an American head,

probably washed up from one of the planes which had gone into the

Pacific the week before.

Later, the protagonist visits a hospital immediately after a fierce

battle on Okinawa:

. . . the wounded were coming back by the shiploads. . . . and now he

could see those tortured devils in rows before his eyes. The empty

sleeves dangled in his face. The legless one just lay there and lay

there unmoving like soundless specters who had come back to haunt those

not yet exposed to the inferno of battle.

These harrowing encounters, along with others, raise "The

Question": Can God be a God of love? The protagonist, who clearly is

Sergeant Taylor, answers that question by affirming, "God, for his own

reasons, created man with a free will. With this free will, man is free

to choose between doing what is good for his fellowman or what is bad

for his fellowman. In other words, man can choose between Good and

Evil. Some men, for their own selfish reasons, choose Evil." This

theological resolution to the problem of evil confirms the goodness of

God and places full responsibility for evil on wicked men. Clearly,

Professor Taylor's teenage revival experience is yet another example of

the complete man, who neither dismisses a person's spiritual nature, nor

shies away from asking difficult theological questions and answering

them by maintaining the historic Christian doctrine of God's goodness

and man's sinfulness.

I would be remiss in concluding this review if I did not note

that the complete man is multi-talented, including artistic sensitivity.

In Professor Taylor's case, artistic sensitivity is demonstrated by

writing poetry. The memoir is filled with poems Professor Taylor wrote

at various junctures in his life, from love poems to war poems to poems

that talk about how the complete man is formed. One such poem, "College

1946," defends the completeness that comes through the crucible of war,

noting that a young co-ed should understand that war has transformed

soldiers from lighted-hearted individuals to complete men who have "seen

the fallen comrades / they have heard the bursting shell. / They, in

short my little lady / Have been through a part of hell." In "America,"

Professor Taylor has a peon of praise to freedom in America: "Come all

ye free men-hail her / Thy love for her now show / Give praise to God

our Father / That he has blessed us so."

Love of God, love of country, love of family, love of values

that promote hard work and thriftiness round out the complete man. But

I would be hasty if I left the impression that Professor Taylor limits

completeness to men. Throughout his memoir, he justly acknowledges his

wife as one who worked hand-in-hand with him as his character was being

developed in all its completeness and who, herself, is complete.

Experiences of a World War II Veteran is a valuable book that

provides insight into members of the greatest generation, aptly named

because of their sacrifices and enduring belief in the value of those

sacrifices to create a better world in which freedom is cherished and

available to all. Professor Taylor has provided readers with rich

details not only about his experiences as a complete man but also about

the life that once existed in this country to motivate people to

completeness. Sadly, the greatest generation and the values that

generation held dear are both passing away, and we in America are

impoverished as they pass but enriched in knowing that what they stood

for has the power to revive and sustain a nation that properly should

seek completeness for all its citizens.

Bruce W. Speck is Provost and Vice President for Academic and Student

Affairs at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.